Only later in life, as I learned more about the World Wars, was I able to appreciate the significance of this solemn memorial. To this very day it still astounds me to think of how many young men, boys really, were wrested from their peaceful Middle American homes, screamed at by a drill instructor during a month or two of boot camp and then sent overseas to a place where they could not even speak the language. Their average survival time was six weeks. Six short weeks, often less time than they had spent in training. Then they were dead with only a silent gravestone to commemorate their brief existence on earth. That they died so swiftly and in such vast numbers to ensure the enduring liberty we all enjoy today leaves me in total awe.
When I consider this, it is absolutely impossible to imagine how people can possibly disregard or ignore the threat that confronts us now. Once again, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have from the ashes of tyranny, in the form of Islam, to assail everything that all those who went before us fought and died to preserve.
The photo above is of that National Cemetery. Over 100,000 of America's soldiers are buried there. My own grandfather is included among them. I sometimes struggle to understand how people can drive by this grim reminder of how hard won our freedom is yet oppose current attempts to preserve it. Very few have perished in this ongoing war against Islam but even this minuscule loss, no matter how precious, has managed to dissuade so many from continuing the fight for our freedom and that of the entire world. Were I to have ever opposed the fight against Islamic domination, just glimpsing the photo above would cause an agony of shame.
We all have so much to thank our fallen heroes for. So few seem to understand this. May that lack of understanding eventually become a disgrace to all who deny their monumental sacrifice upon our behalf.